Guinness has introduced two new porters, based on recipes dating back to the
1700s. It's high time this dark beer style made a comeback, say Ben
McFarland and Tom Sandham

At Thinking Drinkers Towers, there’s a genuine passion for ethically-sourced, local produce. Every time we sit down to eat, we stick it to ‘The Man’ in a manner that can best be described as ‘big time’.

Our ‘elevenses’ chunk of Cathedral City is always served with artisan chutney. Rare is the occasion that our regular Rustler Burger isn’t accompanied by some organic alioli. And sometimes, right, we sip pure Rooibos tea from our “Keep Calm and Carry On” mugs and just sit there chuckling at the butternut squash we grew in our very own allotment. Why? Because it looks like a massive dong.

Our acute appreciation of all things artisan extends to the local pub too. If it’s not considered craft then, hey, we’re not drinking it, OK? In these halcyon beer drinking days we’re living in, we don’t let our laughing gear anywhere near mass-produced, mainstream lagers. Am I right, guys?

That said, just the other day, as we took our first sip of the unfiltered, late-hopped Saison laced with black pepper and feral yeast that’s been aged in the draws of an oak desk once owned by Dostoevsky, we couldn’t help but spare a thought for good old Guinness.

Apparently, this whole ‘craft beer’ carry-on that’s been happening has been pretty bad news for the Black Stuff. Forever the go-to guy in boozers where the only other option was ropey cooking lagers, the ubiquitious Oirish stout has suffered as drinkers have broadened their beer horizons.

Pubs closing all the time hasn’t helped either. In spite of efforts to branch out into bottles and fancy cans, Guinness has always been a beer best enjoyed in the boozer. So when pubs shut their doors and if people go to the pub less frequently, which is exactly what’s happening, then it’s a massive kick in the goolies for Guinness. And another thing, no-one goes to O’Neill's anymore. Eh? Really? Oh.

Anyway, what is Guinness going to do about it? Well, yesterday, it did something that it hasn’t done for a long time – it unveiled two new Guinness beers. Rather than making the core brand colder, changing the way Guinness is poured or unveiling a new bottle or somesuch, Guinness has launched a pair of porter beers.

Guinness Dublin Porter (3.8%) and the stronger Guinness West Indies Porter (6%) are both brewed in Dublin and, it is claimed, both are inspired by authentic recipes discovered in brewers’ diaries dating back to the late 1700s and early 1800s.

While many will appreciate the Irish provenance of these porters, the beer style was originally born in London. In fact, porter is the beer that made London, for a century or more, the most important brewing city in the world. If you think the capital’s contemporary craft brewing scene is in fine fettle now, it’s nothing when compared with London brewing at its most rich and revered 18th century pomp.

Back then, the chimney stacks of hundreds of breweries smudged the city’s skyline and porter was London’s ultimate blue-collar beer – it was the original urban ale. It was the universal in the inns of London having been developed by the city’s brown beer brewers who were coming under threat from paler ales being brewed further north.

Porter, initially, was a hoppier, aged version of the muggy brown beers that had been popular in the pubs of London for years. The new ‘porter’ beers were highly hopped, brewed with high-roasted malt and then aged in 108-gallon casks called butts.

Just as Sir Mix-a-Lot did centuries later, brewers loved these big butts as it allowed brewers to make the beer all year round and in huge quantities, the maturation in wood also softened the smoky flavour of the burned malted barley while also adding a slightly funky element to the dark ale – which came from wild yeast, critters and microflora that lived in the butts.

They did have their drawbacks, however. Almost exactly two hundred years ago, in October 1814, at a brewery located on a site now occupied by the Dominion Theatre on Tottenham Court Road, several butts containing 3,500 barrels of porter exploded and the ensuing tsunami of dark brown beer took the lives of eight people. It was very sad. But what a way to go.

Despite this disaster, porter became absurdly popular - especially among London’s porters – hence the name. These men weren’t the chaps who worked outside hotels, they were the men who moved goods around the city’s streets like olden-day white van men and shifted stuff on and off the ships on the River Thames.

After a gruelling day moving things about, they would hit the pub and slake their thirst with a pint of porter accompanied by a few oysters – the 18th century equivalent of a packet of peanuts or crisps. It was the drink of Charles Dickens, the beer enjoyed by James Joyce and porter was also the brew that helped build the British Empire.

Its ability to age well made it ideal for travel and, thanks to Britain’s avaricious overseas trading ethos, porter became the world’s first truly global beer style. It was exported to India in quantities that dwarfed those of India Pale Ale; the First Fleet that made the trip to Australia toasted their arrival with copious amounts of porter; it became really big in the Baltic and the West Indies and it also captured drinkers’ imaginations in America where, having become a symbol of imperial oppression, it emerged as the beer of choice among colonials – the most famous of whom was George Washington who, like Benjamin Franklin, famously had a weakness for its silky dark charms.

Back in Blighty, the likes of Truman’s, Barclay Perkins and Whitbread began making a stronger yet very similar version of their hugely popular porters which they called, rather cleverly, “Stout Porters”. Brewed with a bit more brown malt than porters and slightly weightier in texture, stouts emerged in the late 1700s but didn’t become a distinct style until around fifty years later.

What’s the difference between porter & stout?

There’s no real difference between porter and stout any more. Traditionally, stout has always been considered a stronger version of porter as, in the 18th century, the term ‘stout’ was a generic prefix used to describe something that was bigger and stronger.

But that’s no longer the case. Modern porters can be more potent than stouts and vice versa. Equally, in their ingredients, brewing methods, taste and appearance, the two beer styles are indistinguishable.

So, now you know.

Stout’s rise to prominence coincided with a petering out of porter sales. Brewers were using lighter barley to produce pale ale which had become popular among the middle classes while the working classes were developing a taste for Mild. By the end of the Second World War, porter had all but disappeared from the London pubs where it had once poured supreme.

Yet like a lot of beer styles of yesteryear, porter is enjoying a remarkable renaissance and London’s porter-brewing tradition has been revived by a handful of brewers in London and beyond. Fuller’s in Chiswick and South London’s Partizan Brewing, Brew by Numbersand Kernel all brew fine examples of the style.

Born in the heart of hipster East London, Beavertown’s take on London’s original blue collar beer is deftly done. Spills a dark brown, there’s a spiral of smoke on the nose with chocolate mousse on the mid-palate. A rich tobacco, dry leaves finish.

The beery brainchild of San Francisco’s Fritz Maytag, one of the founding fathers of America’s craft brewing revolution, this was first brewed in 1972 when it became the first porter to be brewed post-Prohibition. Lighter than it looks and with crisp carbonation, it’s roasty yet refreshing and makes for a great dessert beer. It’s not, however, a great desert beer.

Marvellously smoky, this silky and smooth-edged mouth-filler and liquid legacy of London’s brewing past is about as close to an eighteenth century porter as any of us are really willing to get. Authenticity with all the unbalanced, acrid and ropey bits taken out. Great with half a dozen oysters - shuck it and see.